Wednesday, 10 February 2010

Be-Jouled, be damned

Got home from work today to find a Joules catalogue (or catazine as they now call it). I immediately bristled, as my OH and I have had a fight with Joules over the non return policy between shops in Cowes, Isle of Wight, and any other Joules shops in the UK, namely Chichester. Apparently the shop in Cowes, although branded as Joules with a Joules receipt, is not in fact a Joules shop. I was trying to return a too-tight holiday gift of a t shirt from OH last June. The Chi shop couldn't do it, and the Cowes shop wanted us to pay to return it! Funny as they have a no quibble returns policy...

Cue email volley between OH and marketing managers arguing about the crappy till systems. Culmination - a decision to update their marketing literature to show that the Cowes shop is an independent shop, in between a franchise and a Joules-owned shop. We are currently still waiting for a final letter of explanation from Joules for the awful customer service we received. A week or so later I see a little Joules postcard inside a magazine. True to their word, they did put a little asterisk by the Cowes address. Shame that they also wrote * Independant store (sic).

Of course I had to write back to them to point out their error. That made me feel better about the whole thing, much more than the letter we are waiting for.